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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869431">Back to Earth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory'>ssrhpurgatory</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dear Listeners AU [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wolf 359 (Radio)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien clone time, F/M, Found Family, Goddard Futuristics is a farm for war crimes, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:34:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,637</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869431</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Hilbert has come back to Earth as an alien clone with a very peculiar woman in tow, and his former crewmates try to figure out how they feel about it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hilbert &amp; Isabel Lovelace, Alexander Hilbert &amp; Renèe Minkowski, Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character, Doug Eiffel &amp; Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace &amp; Renée Minkowski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dear Listeners AU [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1455937</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Isabel Lovelace was having a very confusing day.</p><p class="p1">To be honest, she’d actually been having a very confusing seven years or so at this point, but she thought this day might top them all.</p><p class="p1">It hadn’t started off confusing. It had been a normal day—well, as normal a day as an alien duplicate living with the space station crew that had become her family in the house of a mad scientist who had lost her memories could have—but then she had left the house, just to walk into town and get a breath of fresh air, and everything went downhill from there.</p><p class="p1">She’d been texting with Renée when, from somewhere behind her, she heard a very familiar voice.</p><p class="p1">A very familiar voice that belonged to a man who had died more than two years ago.</p><p class="p1"><em>It can’t be Selberg</em>, her mind insisted. <em>I’m just imagining things. I feel guilty about his death, and I’m imagining that some perfectly normal person’s voice is his.</em></p><p class="p1">And then she turned around, and there he was, Elias Selberg—or Alexander Hilbert, as he’d most recently been called—having some kind of argument with a short, fat, and decidedly elderly Black woman who looked strangely familiar to Isabel, though she could not put a name to the woman.</p><p class="p1">But that strange familiarity didn’t matter, because two seconds later Isabel had Selberg by the throat and was yelling at him. “Selberg, you <em>bastard</em>!”</p><p class="p1">The woman Selberg had been arguing with caught Isabel’s other fist mid-punch. “Captain Lovelace, please. I know he probably deserves whatever it is you plan to do to him, but I’d rather you didn’t punch my husband, all the same.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel didn’t know how to process this, so she released her grip on Selberg’s throat. He fell to the sidewalk with a wheeze.</p><p class="p1">“Your husband.” She stared blankly at the woman, who smiled, and there that jolt of familiarity was again.</p><p class="p1">“Well, not officially, but we’ve only been planetside for about forty-eight hours, so there hasn't really been time to deal with the paperwork yet.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel blinked in surprise, and then gestured down at Selberg, who was still sitting on the sidewalk, trying to breathe. “I'm sorry, but you <em>do</em> know what he’s like, right?”</p><p class="p1">The woman’s smile turned into a smirk. “Oh, <em>intimately</em>.”</p><p class="p1">And there was a thought that Isabel definitely didn't want in her head. Someone knowing Selberg in that particular tone of intimately was so far from Isabel’s preconceived notions of the man that, once again, she didn't know how to process it.</p><p class="p1">“Do not mind me. I am just fine,” muttered Selberg, who had still made no attempt to get to his feet.</p><p class="p1">Isabel ignored him, keeping her eye on the woman, whose face was still sparking a note of familiarity in Isabel’s mind. “Who <em>are</em> you?”</p><p class="p1">The woman tilted her head to one side, as if considering. “That’s… not exactly an easy question to answer these days.” She bit her lower lip, and then sighed. “Most recently, I was an instance of the AI virus Eris.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel jerked away involuntarily, taking a step back from the woman.</p><p class="p1">“But,” the woman said, holding up a stilling hand, “Before then, the better part of me was a woman named Rosemary Epps.”</p><p class="p1">That was almost as bad. “I see. What does that make you now?”</p><p class="p1">The woman shrugged. “A work in progress, I suspect. But he’s been calling me Rosemary, so you might as well do the same.” She leaned over Selberg, who had continued grumbling underneath his breath, obviously trying to get someone’s attention. “You are perfectly all right, Sasha darling, and you know it.”</p><p class="p1">“Hm. I am not certain.” He glared up at Rosemary. “Perhaps I need you to kiss and make better.”</p><p class="p1">One of Rosemary’s eyebrows quirked upwards in a decidedly dangerous fashion. “Do you, now.”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Da.</em>”</p><p class="p1">“Oh, very well.” Rosemary stooped a little further over Selberg and pressed a kiss to his neck, an intimacy that made Isabel uncomfortable enough that she needed to look away, though that didn't stop her from hearing Rosemary’s murmured “Better?”</p><p class="p1">“Hm,” Selberg said again, this time a contented little hum instead of a disgruntled one. “Perhaps one more.”</p><p class="p1">“Incorrigible man.” There was a moment of silence, and then a startled little “Oh!” from Rosemary and a thump that had Isabel glancing back their way. Selberg had apparently snagged Rosemary around the waist and had pulled her into his lap, and from the look of things he was kissing her in earnest.</p><p class="p1">Isabel felt as if she were having a particularly vivid hallucination, but fortunately, she had an easy way to check on the reality of the scene in front of her. Trying not to look too closely, she snapped a quick photo of the pair and added it to her next text to Renée.<br/>
<b><em>Can you see this?</em></b></p><p class="p1">A response came almost immediately.<br/>
<b><em>Is that Hilbert?<br/>
</em></b><b><em>He appears to be kissing a strange woman.</em></b></p><p class="p1">Isabel snorted.<br/>
<b><em>There are no words to explain how strange this woman is<br/>
</em></b><b><em>What should I do?</em></b></p><p class="p1">The three dots that indicated Renée was typing lingered on the screen far longer than they should have for the length of the message that came next.<br/>
<b><em>Bring them home for dinner.</em></b></p><p class="p1">Isabel rolled her eyes.<br/>
<b><em>Be serious</em></b></p><p class="p1">Renée’s response was almost instant this time, as if she’d anticipated Isabel’s reaction.<br/>
<b><em>I am being serious!<br/>
</em></b><b><em>Dom says we can do a cookout.</em></b></p><p class="p1">Isabel sighed and glanced over at Selberg and Rosemary. They were still kissing. Making out, really. Like teenagers, for all that both of them definitely had the appearance of senior citizens.</p><p class="p1">“So… you two going to be done any time soon, or do I need to get a rolled up newspaper?” Isabel said loudly, hoping it would get through to them.</p><p class="p1">Apparently it had gotten through to Rosemary, at least; she pressed her hands against Selberg’s shoulders until he was forced to pull back from her. She turned her face to Isabel with a guilty grin.</p><p class="p1">“Sorry about that. When you've been incorporeal for twenty years, physical touch is… oooh. Distracting.” Rosemary swatted Selberg away from her neck, where he had just planted a kiss.</p><p class="p1">Isabel’s eye’s darted to Selberg, baffled by his actions. During the time they had spent aboard the Hephaestus—both missions—it had been pretty clear that sex and anything resembling it was the furthest thing from his mind at all times. But right now he was staring at Rosemary with a silly, fond little grin on his face that, for all its lightness, made it obvious that his intentions towards the woman were definitely prurient in nature.</p><p class="p1">It was <em>weird</em>.</p><p class="p1">He helped Rosemary push her way to her feet and then took the hand she proffered, letting her pull him back upright. And then he leaned in to kiss the woman yet again, as if incapable of resisting.</p><p class="p1">“Guys? Honestly?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary pushed Selberg away again, blushing. “Sorry.”</p><p class="p1">“Not sorry,” he growled, wrapping an arm around her waist.</p><p class="p1">Rosemary rolled her eyes and slipped out of his grasp. “You’re up at Pryce’s mansion, yes?”</p><p class="p1">Isabel nodded cautiously. “Yeah.”</p><p class="p1">“Let’s go, then.” And she set off in a decided march, leaving both Selberg and Isabel a few steps behind.</p><p class="p1">For lack of anything better to do, and in the hope of getting answers, Isabel followed.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“So,” Isabel said after ten minutes or so of walking in silence, once they had left the small downtown and headed off down a nondescript road that lead out into what seemed to be a rather expensive residential area. “You’re alive.” Her gaze was fixed pointedly on the road ahead of them when Alexander glanced her way.</p><p class="p1">“So are you.” And she had not been, when he had died.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah. Right.” Isabel frowned. “I take it you know what I am.”</p><p class="p1">“The same thing I am, now. And her.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel turned to him with a surprised expression on her face, and then laughed. “Of course. God. Of course.” She let out another laugh. “That would actually make sense.”</p><p class="p1">“What did you think had happened? That I had planted a corpse and left the station somehow?”</p><p class="p1">“I didn’t know what to think,” Isabel said, and then shuddered. “There… wasn’t much left.”</p><p class="p1">Up ahead, Rosemary had come to a halt just outside the gate that lead to Dr. Pryce’s driveway, and was looking back at both of them. “You have the keycode for this?” she called back. “Mine is out of date.”</p><p class="p1">“Ah.” Isabel took a few swift steps to catch up with Rosemary. “About that. Well, Pryce’s home AI has been taking care of security personally. And you… you might want to brace yourself.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary quirked a bemused eyebrow at Isabel. “Brace myself?”</p><p class="p1">Isabel cleared her throat and pressed the button on the gate intercom. “Hey Rosemary? It’s Isabel back with a couple of guests.”</p><p class="p1">“Have they got security clearance?” The voice that echoed out of the speaker was Rosemary’s, twenty years younger and incredibly chipper.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, Miranda, you <em>bitch</em>,” Rosemary the person said expressively, before sitting down on the road as if her knees had given out under her.</p><p class="p1">“Who is that?” the voice coming from the speaker asked.</p><p class="p1">“The original model,” Rosemary shot back, sounding indignant despite the fact that she had denied truly being Rosemary Epps time and time again on their trip back to Earth. But it seemed that facing down an AI using her voice was enough to get her to claim that identity as her own, which Alexander could only view as a hopeful sign.</p><p class="p1">“What do you <em>mean</em>, the original model?”</p><p class="p1">“I mean I’m Rosemary Epps, and you’re using my fucking voice.”</p><p class="p1">There was a burst of static from the speaker. “Could you hold on for just a moment?”</p><p class="p1">“If you could just let us in, and we could get it sorted out with the others?” Isabel interjected.</p><p class="p1">“But if they don’t have security clearance—“</p><p class="p1">“Would you just do your fucking job and talk to Bennett?” Rosemary snapped.</p><p class="p1">“There’s no need to get snippy with me,” the AI Rosemary snapped back.</p><p class="p1">“And there is no need to argue with yourself,” Alexander added, reaching down to press a calming hand to Rosemary’s shoulder. “She is just an AI, suka.”</p><p class="p1">“It’s the principle of the thing!” Rosemary muttered.</p><p class="p1">There was a moment of awkward silence, and then the AI Rosemary spoke up again. “Bennett has given me clearance for Rosemary Epps and Alexander Hilbert. You may proceed.” There was a buzz and a click, and the gate finally swung open.</p><p class="p1">Rosemary shoved herself back to her feet and stormed through the gate, starting down the extremely lengthy driveway at a pace well beyond what seemed reasonable given her diminutive stature and leaving the pair of them behind once more.</p><p class="p1">“How does she move so fast?” Isabel asked, sounding more than a little perturbed.</p><p class="p1">Alexander shrugged. “She used to do it in heels,” was the only response he could think of.</p><p class="p1">“Huh.” Isabel lapsed back into silence for the rest of the walk up the drive.</p><p class="p1">Renée was standing on the front porch of Pryce’s vast mansion, obviously waiting to verify Alexander’s existence. By the time he and Isabel reached the porch, Rosemary had apparently introduced herself and Renée was giving her a very peculiar look indeed.</p><p class="p1">Well, if Dr. Pryce truly had modeled her home AI after Rosemary, no wonder. Though Alexander felt certain that whatever parts of Rosemary the AI contained, they did not include the personality matrixes encoded in the brain scan taken so close to her death, during that last desperate attempt to preserve some of what Rosemary had been with a technology that was still in development. Alexander had not been privy to much of Pryce’s research in that area, but from what he had heard, seeding an AI off of a real person was a dangerous business. Easier—and safer—to take an existing AI and lay in subroutines based on knowledge taken from a human mind.</p><p class="p1">Unless you wanted a virus like Eris, at least.</p><p class="p1">Renée’s eyes darted past Rosemary to meet Alexander’s. For a moment, there was only anger there, and then… and then Renée was pushing past Rosemary and Isabel and crushing Alexander to her in a hug.</p><p class="p1">“Commander Minkowski?” he asked after a moment, trying to get breath back in his lungs and failing.</p><p class="p1">“Don’t complain,” she muttered gruffly, releasing him from the hug but still holding him by the shoulders.</p><p class="p1">“I thought you would want to kill me.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, I considered it. But death didn’t exactly take with her,” she jerked her head towards Isabel, “So I’m going to guess it’s not going to stick to you either. Which just leaves me with…” she trailed off and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Just let me be glad you’re alive, okay?”</p><p class="p1">Alexander somehow resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “If you must.”</p><p class="p1">She clapped him companionably on the shoulder and released him entirely, turning to include the other two in the conversation. “Now, who wants hamburgers?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“Hey. You must be Dr. Hilbert.” Doug held his hand out to the bald man, smiling hesitantly. “The commander said she briefed you on the whole… situation.”</p><p class="p1">Dr. Hilbert hesitantly took Doug’s hand and shook it, a vague expression of distress on his face. “Yes, I… ah. Yes.”</p><p class="p1">“Looking forward to getting to know you again, anyway.” Doug said, forcing his smile wider as Dr. Hilbert dropped his hand. “Old me was pretty sure you were some sort of supervillain, but old me seems to have had a penchant for exaggeration.”</p><p class="p1">“No, no, old you was right. He’s <em>definitely </em>not the sort of person you want to get to know better,” Isabel said in a low, nasty voice. She grabbed Dr. Hilbert by the arm and hastened him on past Doug and further into Miranda’s garden.</p><p class="p1">Doug chose to ignore Isabel’s nastiness and turned to the woman who had been standing next to Dr. Hilbert. “And you’re…?”</p><p class="p1">The fat little Black woman took Doug’s hand, snatching it up in a crushingly tight grip and shaking it enthusiastically. “Rosemary Epps. I’ve heard so much about you.”</p><p class="p1">Doug hadn’t heard anything about her. Hell, until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to him that Miranda’s home AI might have been using a real person’s voice, but here this woman was, grinning up at him in a way that made him want to grin back, talking with another version of that voice. “I hope some of it was good?”</p><p class="p1">She laughed and clapped her hands together. “Oh, yes. Bob was <em>extremely</em> effusive.”</p><p class="p1">“Bob?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary’s face fell. “Ah. Yes. Right. You know, the fellow with your face out there beyond Wolf 359.”</p><p class="p1">That was not any more enlightening, but Doug nodded anyway. “Yeah. Sure.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary’s further look of chagrin made Doug think that perhaps she had realized that he didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was talking about, but she didn’t push the subject. “Well, I’ve got you and your commander to thank for the fact that I’m here, whether you remember it or not, so let me thank you.”</p><p class="p1">Doug frowned. “How so?”</p><p class="p1">“I was in Box 953. Technically.”</p><p class="p1">That was something Doug <em>did</em> remember hearing about from his logs. “Wait a second, you mean there really <em>was</em> a person in there?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary let out an awkward burst of laughter. “Oh, goodness, <em>no.</em> Or at least not one with an actual body.”</p><p class="p1">“So, what, you were some kind of an AI?”</p><p class="p1">“Something like that, yes.”</p><p class="p1">Doug felt a sudden, startled rush of longing for the presence of the one person they hadn’t been able to take with them when they’d made their strategic retreat to Miranda’s home. Hera had been put back in storage by Goddard Futuristics, and Doug didn’t know for certain, but it felt very much as if she were being held hostage against everyone’s good behavior.</p><p class="p1">Rosemary seemed to notice this change in mood too, tilting her head to one side and giving him a sympathetic look. “You all right?”</p><p class="p1">“I was just thinking that if Hera had come back as a human instead of...” Doug forced himself to smile. “Well, anyway, not what you’re here for.”</p><p class="p1">“Hera... your AI?”</p><p class="p1">Doug nodded. “They stuck her back in a box when we got back.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary frowned. “I see. Well, if you lot want her out, I’ll just have to see what I can do on that front.”</p><p class="p1">Doug raised a dubious eyebrow. “What <em>you</em> can do?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary grinned, a sudden, sharp, <em>terrifying</em> grin that made Doug take a step back from her. “Oh, <em>yes</em>,” she said, rubbing her hands together gleefully. “Didn’t I say? I’ve come to help take Goddard Futuristics apart from the inside out.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Isabel?” Alexander tried to remain calm, but she was back in the sort of mood he suspected would lead to his murder.</p><p class="p1">“You stay <em>away</em> from him,” she said in a low, dangerous voice. “Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him, just… just keep away from him, all right?”</p><p class="p1">Ah. Alexander jerked his arm out of Isabel’s grip. “You do not need to make demands. I will keep my distance.” Though he had to know… “Decima?”</p><p class="p1">Isabel glared at him. “There hasn’t been a reoccurrence. As far as we’ve been able to tell, that transfusion he got from me kicked its ass.”</p><p class="p1">Interesting. Very interesting. Something he would have to explore further, if he got a chance. Not with Officer Eiffel, of course, but if he could get a sample of Decima into himself… “I see.”</p><p class="p1">“I can see your brain working, Selberg, and whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Just don’t.”</p><p class="p1">Alexander blinked. Isabel always had been able to read him too well. “I was not thinking of anything,” he said guiltily.</p><p class="p1">“Good. Keep it that way.” She jerked her head stiffly towards a table where the makings of a picnic were laid out. “Help yourself,” she said in a grudging tone that made it clear she hoped he would choke on it. And then she stalked off and pulled a beer out of a cooler before joining Commander Minkowski at the other side of the garden, throwing herself down in a lawn chair at the other woman’s side.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“You were right. That is… a very strange woman.” Renée tilted her head to one side and watched as the woman who had introduced herself as Rosemary (“The <em>original</em> Rosemary,” she had added, along with a glare over Renée’s shoulder at one of the speakers Pryce’s home AI used) hung over Hilbert’s shoulder, clearly trying to coax the man into trying some potato salad. Hilbert was holding one hand protectively between the tub of potato salad in her hand and his plate and appeared to be using the other to fend her off, but for all the rest of his face was set in an irritated expression, the very corner of his mouth was quirked up into what she could only describe as a fond little smile.</p><p class="p1">She had never seen Hilbert smile like that.</p><p class="p1">“And you never met her as Eris,” Isabel said.</p><p class="p1">“Hm.”</p><p class="p1">They watched in silence for a few moments longer, as Rosemary laughed at Alexander’s attempts to fend her off. Eventually, she scooped potato salad on to her own plate and sat down opposite of him at the little outdoor table he’d claimed, beaming across the table at him.</p><p class="p1">“Do you think that they’re really…” Isabel trailed off suggestively.</p><p class="p1">Renée watched as Rosemary speared a chunk of potato off her own plate and offered it to Alexander. He made a face and then took the fork in his mouth, his eyes locked on Rosemary and a very, very obvious expression on his face as he did. “Oh, yeah. They’re definitely really…” she trailed off in the same suggestive way Isabel had.</p><p class="p1">“It’s just… I didn’t think he was interested in…”</p><p class="p1">“Women?” Renée asked.</p><p class="p1">“<em>People</em>,” Isabel said expressively.</p><p class="p1">Renée eyed her friend with a frown. She had always been left with the impression that Isabel had felt something for the curmudgeonly old scientist, though whether that had been simple friendship or something stronger Renée had never been sure. Whatever it had once been, however, it had turned entirely into a fierce hatred—coupled with complete and utter disgust—by the time Isabel had appeared on the station. And even if Isabel had seemed to get over wanting to murder Hilbert in his sleep by the time he had died, that disgust had never quite gone away.</p><p class="p1">As to whether those feelings, whatever they were, had gone both ways… Well. Renée never could quite forget their first encounter after Isabel’s return to the Hephaestus, the sound of Hilbert’s voice as he begged Isabel to come back, despite the fact that she had almost killed him.</p><p class="p1">They had been something to one another, that was all. As to whether what Isabel was feeling now was more of that hatred and disgust, or jealousy that some other person was receiving the sort of attention she wanted from the man… that, Renée would not even hazard a guess at.</p><p class="p1">“You should eat something,” Renée said instead.</p><p class="p1">“Not really hungry,” Isabel muttered.</p><p class="p1">“Do I have to make it an order?”</p><p class="p1">Isabel made a face. “We’re civilians now. You can’t order me to do anything.” But she got to her feet and headed towards the grill Dom was manning now that he had shooed away Pryce’s burger-flipping robot.</p><p class="p1">A few moments later, Doug flopped in the chair on her other side. “How’s it going?”</p><p class="p1">“Ehhhh.” Renée accompanied the noncommittal noise with a side-to-side waggle of her hand.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, I knew they were, well…” Doug’s eyes darted from the table where Rosemary and Hilbert were sitting over towards Isabel, who was putting together a plate. “But the way she dragged him off…”</p><p class="p1">And for a good reason. Renée was just as worried about Hilbert interacting with Doug again, and probably for the same reasons Isabel was. “Look, Doug…”</p><p class="p1">“I know. I read his reports, remember?” Doug laughed. “I know he’s just as supervillain as old me seemed to think. But as horrific as his actions were… you said he seemed to be changing. You hoped he was. He certainly was starting to make better choices, from what you’ve told me. And maybe… maybe what he needs is a clean slate. I can give him that.”</p><p class="p1">Doug—this new Doug—still surprised her sometimes with how willing he was to forgive. “I guess you can. Better than any of us.” Renée swallowed hard. “But you let us know if he tries to get you into a lab for testing, all right?”</p><p class="p1">Doug grinned and tossed her a laconic salute. “Yes, sir.”</p><p class="p1">Renée reached out and shoved him companionably on the shoulder. “Stop it with that.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes, oh supreme commander.”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Eiffel.</em>”</p><p class="p1">“Oh most commandery of commanders.”</p><p class="p1">“How is it that you’re even more annoying now?”</p><p class="p1">“I can’t say for certain, but my best guess? Before, you were just my annoying boss. Now? You’re family.”</p><p class="p1">“God help me.” But all her tension and worry had drained away, leaving her relaxed and chuckling, and that she could only be grateful for.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter-specific warnings: there is a brief discussion of adults committing horrifying acts of violence against children, primarily rape and abuse. These acts are not depicted and there will not be any further mention of such things in this fic, but it is stuff that is mentioned in this chapter and this is your warning that this discussion exists.</p><p>The start and end of this section is marked by a #, and the context is a description of the people the first three Decima trials were done on.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Watching Selberg with that Rosemary woman was driving Isabel a little bit crazy.</p><p class="p1">Oh, not for any sensible reason. It was just that Rosemary had claimed to know Selberg, to know him intimately, and she still could tease and smile and laugh in his presence. But Rosemary herself seemed… well, she looked like someone’s nice little old grandma and acted like it too, aside from the teasing Selberg bit. And how a woman like that could know what Selberg was and still seem to like him…</p><p class="p1">It didn’t make sense.</p><p class="p1">So when Rosemary got up to get rid of her plate and grab a soda out of the cooler, Isabel found herself getting to her feet and joining her. Rosemary paused deliberately at Isabel’s approach and half turned towards her, a warm and welcoming smile on her face.</p><p class="p1">“Captain Lovelace?”</p><p class="p1">“I have to ask,” Isabel said, the words forcing their way out of her mouth. “It’s just, you… you seem <em>normal.</em> Nice. So what the fuck do you see in him?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary burst into laughter, and kept laughing, for far longer than Isabel thought her question had warranted. As Rosemary laughed, Selberg—no, Hilbert, she had to remember that he was going by Alexander Hilbert these days<span class="s1">—</span>looked up from the remains of his meal and came over, throwing a protective arm around Rosemary’s shoulders. And somewhere in the background, the others went silent, clearly watching this standoff.</p><p class="p1">“Have I missed funny joke?” Selberg asked, raising an eyebrow at Isabel.</p><p class="p1">“I… I really don’t know,” Isabel said, eyeing them cautiously.</p><p class="p1">Rosemary took a deep breath and then let out another little snort of laughter. “Sasha, darling. She thinks I’m the <em>nice</em> one.”</p><p class="p1">“Ah.” This time, both of Hilbert’s nonexistent eyebrows flew up his forehead. “A very funny joke.”</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry? Are you saying she’s <em>not</em> the nice one?” Isabel frowned at them both.</p><p class="p1">“You forget, Captain Lovelace, that I worked at Goddard for over twenty years, much of that directly with Dr. Pryce,” Rosemary said, her voice wry and just a little sarcastic.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, so?” asked Isabel.</p><p class="p1">“Well, let’s just say that Mr Arthur Keller didn’t hire me for my stellar good looks.” The amusement dropped off of Rosemary’s face in an instant, leaving her suddenly serious. “He hired me because he needed someone to oversee his biochem lab research who was… nonchalant, shall we say, when it comes to the subject of human experimentation. He kept me because Dr. Pryce <em>liked</em> me, because I was efficient, and intelligent, and willing to do whatever she needed me to do.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel felt her face twist into a sour expression. Of course. It <em>would</em> take someone like that to care about Selberg. “So you’re saying you’re just as bad as him.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary shook her head. “No. I’m saying I’m worse.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel let out an angry little huff of laughter. “‘Nonchalant about human experimentation.’” She spat Rosemary’s own words back at her. “How does a person even get like that?”</p><p class="p1">“Very easily, Captain,” Rosemary said, meeting Isabel’s eye with a steely look. “You just have to start in the right place. Start with the people that the rest of the world thinks no longer have the right to be human.”</p><p class="p1">“Everyone has the right to be human!” But hadn’t Isabel herself called Selberg a cockroach time and again?</p><p class="p1">“Shall I tell you who the first Decima trial was done on?”</p><p class="p1">Hilbert had been watching their back and forth with quiet interest so far, but he made a little hmm-ing noise at this and interrupted. “Rosemary, you do not need to do this.”</p><p class="p1">“Of course I need to do this. Because they still think you’re a monster, and maybe they’re right, but at least they should know what kind of a monster you are. What kind of monsters we are.”</p><p class="p1">“Hush, suka,” Hilbert said, pulling her closer against his side and turning towards her a bit so he could tuck his other hand under her chin and tilt her head towards him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and Isabel felt suddenly like she was intruding. “I do not need their forgiveness, or their understanding.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary shook her head. “That’s not why I’m doing it. They need to know how <em>easy</em> it is.”</p><p class="p1">#</p><p class="p1">Hilbert looked her in the eye, and then nodded, and Rosemary wrapped her arm around Hilbert’s waist and turned her gaze back in Isabel’s direction. “The first Decima trial was done on a man who started raping his daughter when she was three years old. She was twelve by the time she got someone to believe her.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel’s breath left her in a rush.</p><p class="p1">“The second Decima trial was done on a woman who had beaten and starved three foster children to death over a four year period. She reported them all as runaways. Later forensics reports on the bodies and testimony from the other children in that household confirmed that there had also been extensive and violent sexual molestation.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel could only stare.</p><p class="p1">“The third Decima trial was done on a cult member who had married multiple pre-teen girls and who raped them on a regular basis, because after all, they <em>were</em> his wives.”</p><p class="p1">#</p><p class="p1">Isabel finally found her voice. “I get it,” she said hoarsely. “Fine. But that doesn’t excuse what <em>he</em>—” she gestured angrily to Hilbert, “—did to Lambert, to Hui, to Fourier.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary’s stare was still even, still calm. “Are you saying it excuses what he did to the subjects of his other trials, then?”</p><p class="p1">“I…” Isabel trailed off. “They were monsters. Trash.”</p><p class="p1">“You’ve seen what Decima can do to someone. But that was after he figured out how to control it a little. You cannot imagine what it did to those early test subjects, Captain.” Rosemary’s voice was tinged with regret, with weariness. “They may have been trash, but they were still <em>human beings.</em> And we treated them as less than. Imagine how that wears on a person, over time. Imagine how easy it is to get to the point where it <em>does not matter</em>, where another human being just becomes a body, an incubator, a playing field where you’re pitting your wits against the virus.” Rosemary paused, her face suddenly tired, and she let out a little sigh. “Imagine how easy it is to stop giving yourself the consideration you might once have given another person, when you no longer see other people as human beings.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel didn’t know what to say, and she could no longer bear to meet Rosemary’s eyes.</p><p class="p1">“So yes, we’re monsters,” Rosemary’s voice regained its edge, its steel. “Because that’s what it took to make progress, and at Goddard, there was no choice but to do so. Because Marcus Cutter, William Carter, Arthur Keller… whatever the name he’s had over the years, he was the biggest monster of them all. And all us little monsters could do was feed the beast.”</p><p class="p1">“Six people,” Rosemary continued. “Three of the worst humanity has to offer, in a petty little way. Three of the ones that you loved. Six people is all it took for you to start drawing distinctions between who deserves it and who doesn’t. Another six is all it takes to start wondering if maybe it doesn’t matter what kind of people they are, because you have to make progress, because you have to make it <em>work</em>.” Rosemary reached out and grabbed Isabel by the chin, forcing Isabel to meet her eyes, and Isabel was reminded that this woman, that Hilbert, were now what she was herself, that if they were monsters returned to earth there was nothing anyone could do to stop them, not for long. “A dozen more, and you stop even pretending to make distinctions, or bargains. Because the beast of progress has to be fed.”</p><p class="p1">“And <em>you</em> had to be the one to feed it?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary held Isabel’s eye in a cold, emotionless gaze. “You know where that path ends. With bodies that look like you and me crushed under the wheels of progress because in this goddamn country, their skin implies their guilt. If I could make sure it only happened to the people who deserved it because of their actions, why shouldn’t I have?” Rosemary released Isabel’s chin and turned away, disgust in every line of her body. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to go lay down for a while.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel stared blankly as Rosemary waved Hilbert off and made her way towards the closest exterior door on her own. Behind them, Dom and Renée and Doug started talking again, but Isabel remained silent and cold, wondering what the fuck had just happened. At her side, Hilbert was just as silent, his presence nagging at her.</p><p class="p1">“How long did it take?” Isabel asked, the words forcing their way reluctantly past her lips.</p><p class="p1">Hilbert turned to her, a frown creasing his brow. “How long did it take?”</p><p class="p1">“Until you stopped seeing them as people.”</p><p class="p1">His expression cleared. “Ah.” And then, for some reason, his eyes darted towards the house, towards the door Rosemary had disappeared through.</p><p class="p1">“Selberg?” And his old name slipped out, comfortable on her tongue in a way that she hated.</p><p class="p1">“Four.”</p><p class="p1">“Years? People?”</p><p class="p1">“People.” His voice was low and hoarse and pained, his gaze still fixed on that door.</p><p class="p1">Isabel swallowed hard and asked the question she suspected she already knew the answer to. “Who was the fourth?”</p><p class="p1">Selberg’s face was a cold, distant mask now, a familiar sight. “She had cancer. Terminal. I thought…”</p><p class="p1">“Jesus. You mean that you…”</p><p class="p1">“She volunteered.” And it sounded as if it hurt him to confess it. “She told me she would be… superlative test subject.”</p><p class="p1">“Was she?” Isabel asked, morbidly curious.</p><p class="p1">Selberg let out a harsh little bark of laughter. “Oh yes. The best one I have ever had.”</p><p class="p1">“Jesus. But you... she’s your... how the <em>fuck</em> could you have...” Isabel trailed off, staring at Selberg in horror, completely incapable of finding the right words.</p><p class="p1">Selberg didn’t respond.</p><p class="p1">“Where the fuck does Goddard <em>find </em>people like you two?” she finally asked, snarling the words at him.</p><p class="p1">“You should know the answer to that by now.” He met her eye briefly, a wary, sideways glance. “We are not found. We are made.” He tucked his hands behind his back, interlocking his fingers, a strangely perfect parade rest for a man who had never been military. “And...” his face twisted, full of pain, but he did not continue.</p><p class="p1">“And?”</p><p class="p1">“You must understand. She was the first person, perhaps in my life, to see me for who I was, <em>exactly </em>who I was, and to decide that I deserved to be treated with care all the same.” Another hard swallow, to relieve a voice that sounded as if it had caught in his throat. “She was my lab manager back then. Not my partner. Not my lover. Not my wife. Nothing more than a woman who...” His voice choked off in his throat for a moment, and when he continued it was raw with emotion. “Nothing but a woman who I did not realize mattered until she was gone.”</p><p class="p1">This, at least, Isabel could get her mind around. A Selberg who had once been in a relationship, in love, domestic? That, Isabel could never really believe in. But this... Everything about this was sick, and twisted, and exactly what she would have expected of him. “You really are a piece of work.”</p><p class="p1">Selberg sighed. “In this as in all things, Isabel.” And with those resigned words, he left her, heading towards the house and the woman he had come back with.</p><p class="p1">And Isabel was left feeling vaguely ill and very, very alone.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Renée tried not to worry too much, but when Isabel didn’t move from where Hilbert had left her standing for a good five minutes, she set her plate aside, extracted herself from the desultory conversation she was having with Dom and Doug, and got to her feet. She could almost feel her husband’s worried look, hard between her shoulder blades, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care about it at the moment.</p><p class="p1">She reached Isabel’s side and looped an arm around her shoulders. “You okay?”</p><p class="p1">“Why wouldn’t I be?” Isabel snapped and pulled away. She wrapped her arms across her chest and shivered, for all that it was in the eighties right now.</p><p class="p1">Renée was tempted to push the subject, but suspected now was really not the time to have it out with Isabel. “Okay. You want another beer or something?”</p><p class="p1">“I want that man gone,” Isabel said, her voice low with disgust.</p><p class="p1">“I’m not exactly comfortable with it either. But until we find out why they’re here…” Renée tried touching Isabel again, placing a cautious hand against her upper arm.</p><p class="p1">“I know. I know. Better to keep them close.” Isabel sighed and shut her eyes, leaning into Renée’s touch. “It shouldn’t have been him. If anyone had to come back…”</p><p class="p1">“You would have rather had Kepler? Or Cutter?” Renée asked, almost amused by the thought.</p><p class="p1">“God, no. But when I think about… about…” And she stopped, her voice choked off in her throat by tears she seemed unwilling to shed, obviously thinking about her first crew. “I’m so goddamn angry all the time, Renée. And there that company is, a fucking parasite, bloated and sick and…” her voice cut off again. “And we can’t do anything.”</p><p class="p1">“Jacobi’s trying to make progress with Special Intelligence…”</p><p class="p1">“Jacobi is full of shit.”</p><p class="p1">“Maybe, but he’s our best bet with Pryce out of the picture.” Miranda Pryce had tried to restore her memories from a backup, back when they’d arrived back on Earth themselves, but after it had failed… after it had failed, she had locked herself away in one of the wings of her home, appearing just often enough that they were pretty certain she hadn’t died, and apparently spending all of her time trying to reacquire some fraction of her previous knowledge the old-fashioned way.</p><p class="p1">“I know.” Isabel leaned further, her head briefly against Renée’s shoulder. “I think I <em>will </em>have that beer.”</p><p class="p1">“I’ll have one with you.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Alexander found Rosemary curled up in the corner of a loveseat in the big living room at the front of the house, the documents that Adriane had provided them with that detailed the current state of affairs at Goddard in hand. She had already read her way through them twice and he doubted she had any need to see the physical print of them any more to know their contents back to front, but she was frowning down at them anyway.</p><p class="p1">He sat at her side. “Are you all right?”</p><p class="p1">“Yes. I just needed a moment alone.”Her jaw worked thoughtfully for a moment, her gaze still on the pile of paper in her hands, and then she turned to him with a guilty smile on her face. “I shouldn’t have done that. Are you very angry with me?”</p><p class="p1">He shook his head. “Not at all. I am just worried about you, suka.”</p><p class="p1">“I just got annoyed for a moment, that was all. I needed to make her see that we—that you, at least—started with good intentions.” And she shot a glare at one of the speakers of Pryce’s home AI as she used that combined pronoun, leaving him with the distinct impression that she was choosing her language carefully, making certain not to let slip that she was anything but the original Rosemary.</p><p class="p1">He raised an eyebrow. “And you did not?”</p><p class="p1">She laughed. “<em>I</em> just wanted to see if you could make it work.” And there it was, emphasis on the personal pronoun, a sign of careful internal editing. “I thought it was nonsense—fascinating nonsense, of course, and a good sign that you were the caliber of microbiologist I wanted for my lab group, but nonsense all the same.” She sighed. “And then… you changed my mind.”</p><p class="p1">He reached out for her and she shifted towards him, folding herself against his side, a warm, comfortable presence. “I wish I had not,” he whispered against the side of her forehead.</p><p class="p1">“I would have died anyway. Then, another six months, another year. And it would have been truly nasty, darling, either way.”</p><p class="p1">“Perhaps I would not have so many regrets. Perhaps Decima would not be a threat now.” He let out a harsh laugh, broken in his throat. “Perhaps if I had discarded it back then, after what I did to you…”</p><p class="p1">“You never were one to give up on a hopeless task.”</p><p class="p1">Like loving this woman who might never love him back. Who had no reason to love him, as Isabel’s words had so recently reminded him. “No.”</p><p class="p1">“We need to have a war conference, I think,” Rosemary said, lifting the pile of documents from where she’d set them in her lap. “I don’t know how much use they’ll be for what needs to be done, but I think it’s better to keep them in the loop than not.”</p><p class="p1">“You mean it is better to keep Isabel in the loop,” Alexander said drily.</p><p class="p1">“Would probably keep the murder at a minimum, at least.”</p><p class="p1">A brief flash of movement from the doorway caught Alexander’s eye, but he dismissed it, keeping his attention on Rosemary.</p><p class="p1">A moment later, he wished he hadn’t.</p><p class="p1">“What the <em>FUCK?</em>”</p><p class="p1">Alexander whipped his head back up at that shout to find Daniel Jacobi standing in the doorway, looking rather as if he had gone by without noticing them, only to back up in order to stare in disbelief through the open doorway at them once he had realized they were there. Rosemary turned her head to look as well, and a delighted smile lit up the sliver of her face that Alexander could see.</p><p class="p1">“Danny boy!” she exclaimed, getting to her feet.</p><p class="p1">Jacobi glanced briefly at Rosemary and then back to Alexander, and then back to Rosemary again, giving her an extended and extremely confused once-over. “WHAT THE <b><em>FUCK</em></b>!” he shouted again.</p><p class="p1">The sound of pounding footsteps came from down the hall.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Oh for the love of… It’s fine, everyone!” Renée called back over her shoulder. “We just forgot to text Jacobi!”</p><p class="p1">Jacobi waved his hands expressively in the direction of Hilbert and Rosemary. “What the fuck.”</p><p class="p1">Isabel poked her head around Renée’s shoulder. “You know, I’ve been asking that same question for the past couple of hours?”</p><p class="p1">“Some warning would have been nice!”</p><p class="p1">“Oh, Danny boy, what would have been the fun in that?” Rosemary said with a smile.</p><p class="p1">Renée frowned at her, confused. “You two know each other?”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary tilted her head to one side and regarded Jacobi fondly, that smile still present. “Good old Warren Kepler was <em>awfully</em> fond of running teambuilding exercises in Eris, wasn’t he.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, about that,” Jacobi said, holding his head for a moment like he was trying to keep it from flying to pieces. And then, he threw his hands down, gesturing effusively at Rosemary. “What the <em>fuck.</em>”</p><p class="p1">“What can I say,” Rosemary said with a shrug. “The Dear Listeners got their hands on a copy of Box 953 and got… creative.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, but you’re like, 90!” Jacobi exclaimed. “Since when have you been 90? And what’s with that voice?”</p><p class="p1">“I’m only eighty-three,” Rosemary said primly, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress.</p><p class="p1">“Look,” Renée interjected, getting a little tired of listening in to a conversation she only understood about 50% of the context of, “are you guys going to start trying to murder one another, or can we all be adults here?”</p><p class="p1">“Darling?” Rosemary asked, glancing over her shoulder at Hilbert.</p><p class="p1">Hilbert held his hands up disarmingly. “I do not intend to harm him.”</p><p class="p1">Rosemary turned her smiling face back towards Renée, and then looked past her, taking in Isabel and Doug and Dom, who had all gone running after Renée when she’d heard Jacobi shout and had taken off towards the house. “Well, since everyone’s here… how about we all sit down and have a nice little <em>chat</em>?”</p><p class="p1">Something about Rosemary’s cadence sent a shudder down Renée’s spine. It reminded her of Cutter. “About what?” she asked, eyeing Rosemary suspiciously.</p><p class="p1">That smile of Rosemary’s turned sharp and dangerous. “About bringing an end to Goddard Futuristics, of course.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Daniel felt like he was having a mental break of some kind.</p><p class="p1">Oh, he’d always been good at compartmentalizing—after he’d been fired, that final fatal time before Goddard, being good at compartmentalization had been all that kept him alive—but there was being good at compartmentalization and there was coping with this. With the addition of yet more alien clones into his life, one of whom was a man he had killed and the other of whom hadn’t even been a real person... or at least, so he’d thought.</p><p class="p1">But this woman in front if him had Eris’s face, aged some fifty years or so, had Eris’s cadence, if not her exact voice, and certainly had Eris’s penchant for throwing people off balance.</p><p class="p1">“No,” he heard himself saying. “No. <em>We’ll</em> talk first. You and me.”</p><p class="p1">This got him an amused quirk of the eyebrow from this evil grandma version of Eris. “That could be arranged. Have you had dinner? We’ve been having a cookout.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel hadn’t eaten, but right now the thought of doing so made him feel a little sick. Not so much because of this woman who couldn’t possibly be Eris, but because of the man she’d been with, and because that meant Dr. Hilbert had been brought back when Alana... but he couldn’t deal with that thought right now.</p><p class="p1">At least the garden had less surveillance than Pryce’s house did. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s go.” He turned and navigated stiffly around the others, and a moment later not-Eris caught him by the arm and swept him through the house to the back yard.</p><p class="p1">The pickings were slim and looked rather dubious at this point. Not-Eris still managed to fill a plate for him—some kind of green salad, a hot dog that had been sitting under a cover, once grilled and now cold, some macaroni salad from a bowl that had been stuck in a cooler—and Daniel let her, knowing he wouldn’t bother eating most of it anyway.</p><p class="p1">“Well?” she asked, holding the plate out to him.</p><p class="p1">He took it from her and headed across the lawn. There was a ridiculously ornate fountain back in the ridiculously ornate rose garden that he didn’t think Pryce had ever had any real use for even before she’d lost her memories, and the noise of it was generally enough destructive interference to make it difficult for anyone, human or AI, to easily eavesdrop.</p><p class="p1">He sat down on the wide edge of the fountain, the plate in his lap, and stared at it silently as not-Eris sat down next to him.</p><p class="p1">“You have questions,” not-Eris said.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah. Who the fuck are you?” He turned his head to look at her. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t get stuffed in an instance of Eris while I was out and about today.”</p><p class="p1">“Like I said. Box 953. The Dear Listeners.” She held a fork out to him. “Eat.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, but…” Daniel took the fork without thinking and stabbed a few leaves of spinach. “Look,” he said, gesturing at her with the fork. “Isabel Lovelace was a real person. So was that man who’s sitting back there in that living room. But you’re…”</p><p class="p1">“Rosemary Epps,” she said quietly.</p><p class="p1">Daniel blinked in confusion and ate the bite of salad he’d speared on the fork, as much to give him a moment to think as to keep that confusion hidden. “Pryce’s AI is named Rosemary.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes.”</p><p class="p1">“Based off you?” He raised his eyebrows at her.</p><p class="p1">“We’re more… branches of the same tree,” she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the fountain. “At least if Pryce gave her more than my voice. Though don’t tell her that.”</p><p class="p1">“So who’s this Rosemary person when she’s at home?” Daniel asked, before grabbing the hot dog and stuffing a bite into his mouth.</p><p class="p1">She answered his question with another. “You know when Goddard Futuristics became Goddard Futuristics?”</p><p class="p1">Daniel made a face. “What is this, a history lecture?” He took another bite of the hot dog and chewed. “It was the late seventies, wasn’t it? It was Wright-Goddard Aeronautics before then.”</p><p class="p1">“A change proposed by Arthur Keller, head of communications. He thought it would better reflect Goddard’s status as a leader in deep space exploration.”</p><p class="p1">“How’s that relevant to anything?</p><p class="p1">“Would you be surprised to learn there’s only ever been one man in charge of the Communications department since then?”</p><p class="p1">Not as much as it should. “You mean Cutter’s been puppeting them?”</p><p class="p1">“I mean Cutter <em>was</em> them.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel swallowed hard. Also not as much of a surprise as it should have been, for all that the man had to have completely changed his appearance every five years or so. “Okay. Still don’t see how that’s relevant.”</p><p class="p1">“He spent a decade bringing in people who were loyal to him, taking over the company by slow attrition, but back there at the start it was just a handful of us,” not-Eris said distantly. “All managing different departments, the core of what turned into SI-5 and the Special Projects division. Rosemary oversaw Biochem research. The sort that pays dividends in human suffering, all in the name of progress.” She smiled, her eyes focusing intently on Daniel’s face. “And of course, she worked directly with Dr. Pryce.”</p><p class="p1">Which made her part of the old guard. The <em>really</em> old guard. The people who had set Goddard on its current path. “Shit.”</p><p class="p1">Not-Eris laughed. “Pretty much.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel had finished the hot dog by now and dug into the macaroni salad next, properly ravenous. “So how’d you end up as Eris?”</p><p class="p1">Not-Eris—Rosemary, he supposed he ought to call her—laughed again. “Oh, the very hard way. I suppose you’re aware that Dr. Pryce’s areas of interest include neural transfer?”</p><p class="p1">Daniel nodded.</p><p class="p1">“Her earliest attempts were back in the 90s. She had the storage space back then to preserve brain scans, but not the processing power to do anything with them.” Rosemary bit her lower lip. “I don’t know exactly how it went, but I think she tried to seed AIs off of them at first, once she did have the processing power she needed. But those early attempts proved… volatile.”</p><p class="p1">“People got weirded out about being resurrected as computer functions, huh,” Daniel said around a mouthful of macaroni.</p><p class="p1">“Or possibly the early brain scans weren’t complete enough to remain stable in AI form. Rosemary was long dead by that point, though, so I don’t really know for certain. I do know that after that point, Dr. Pryce limited herself to extracting knowledge from neural maps, and left the personalities be. At least until Eris.” She pulled her feet up on the edge of the fountain, tugging her knees close to her chest, a move no woman who was actually as old as Rosemary looked should have been able to pull off without dislocating something. “I don’t know why she decided to feed Rosemary into Eris. I know… I know that Rosemary was always very good at making people do what she wanted.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel looked down at the remains of the meal he hadn’t expected to be able to eat, bemused. Clearly that hadn’t changed.</p><p class="p1">“Or maybe Pryce just wanted to see if Eris could compensate for the instability of seeding off a real person,” Rosemary continued, a wry smile twisting the corners of her mouth.</p><p class="p1">“Okay.” Daniel set his plate aside. “One thing I don’t get. If Rosemary died in the 90s…”</p><p class="p1">“There’s no way the Dear Listeners would have been able to scan her physical form. I’m aware.” She laughed. “I did say they got creative.”</p><p class="p1">“Okay. Okay. So saying I believe all this—and yeah, I know, after the way the past year has gone, why shouldn’t I?” he said, holding his hands up disarmingly as Rosemary raised a dangerous eyebrow in his direction. “But saying I believe all this… why tell me?”</p><p class="p1">“Because you asked. And because you know Goddard.” She sighed. “And because that means you might actually be useful for what I got sent back to do, and if you’re going to be useful I need you to trust me.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel swallowed hard. “I don’t have any reason to do that.”</p><p class="p1">“I know. I’m going to ask you to do it anyway, though.” Rosemary set a hand against his arm, a careful, cautious touch, and he flinched away.</p><p class="p1">“I’m not… not without Kepler. Not without Maxwell,” he said, the words grinding out dark and frustrated as he dropped his head to his knees. “Things don’t… things don’t make sense any more. I’m not… I’m not a whole person without them.”</p><p class="p1">Her hand settled against his arm again, and when he didn’t jerk away this time it moved to his upper back, a warm, comforting presence there. “I know. I know. But you can learn how to be one again, even without them.”</p><p class="p1">“Fuck that,” he spat.</p><p class="p1">“Language, Danny boy.” But her tone was amused. “I don’t know why the Dear Listeners decided against sending them back. They might not have had enough data, or…”</p><p class="p1">“And they had enough for <em>you</em>? For <em>him</em>? They couldn’t have gotten <em>creative</em>?”</p><p class="p1">“I can’t answer questions they wouldn’t answer for me.” The hand patted him gently between the shoulder blades. “But I can tell you this: I’m going to take apart Goddard Futuristics, one way or another. And I’d like your help, if you’re willing to give it to me.”</p><p class="p1">Daniel sighed and dropped his feet back to the ground, straightening up and looking at Rosemary. “Yeah. Sure. Fuck it. Let’s do this.”</p><p class="p1">A proud smile spread across Rosemary’s face. “There’s the Daniel I know.” And then she lifted a finger to waggle it warningly in his face. “But no explosions unless I give you the say-so, all right?”</p><p class="p1">Daniel rolled his eyes.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Isabel only waited a few seconds after Daniel and Rosemary disappeared before stalking off after them, no doubt to try and spy on whatever conversation they were going to have. A pair of swift looks to Dom and Doug sent them on their way as well, off to some other part of the house, Dom issuing what sounded like a challenge to a game of Super Smash Brothers as they went. And then, Renée was left alone in the living room with Hilbert, who had subsided back onto the couch after Rosemary had left and who was staring forlornly down at his hands, which were wrapped around a compact little stack of paper in his lap. Renée crossed the room and sat down at his side.</p><p class="p1">“Commander Minkowski.” He did not lift his head as he acknowledged her, his gaze still fixed on his lap.</p><p class="p1">“You can call me Renée now,” she said abruptly. She had little more reason to trust him than Isabel had, but still... but still.</p><p class="p1">He let out an almost-chuckle. “What, and I am to invite you to call me Alexander?” he asked, his voice scornful.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t know,” she responded. “Do you want me to?”</p><p class="p1">He rubbed his thumb contemplatively over the corner of the stack of paper. “What do you want?”</p><p class="p1">“Who says I want anything?”</p><p class="p1">At this he did look up at her, his face as scornful and distant as his voice had been. “Commander. Please.”</p><p class="p1">Renée frowned. He always had known her too well. “Does she mean it? Your friend?” At his confused look she clarified. “Are the two of you here to get rid of Goddard?”</p><p class="p1">“Yes.”</p><p class="p1">“Why?” she asked bluntly.</p><p class="p1">“I cannot answer for Rosemary. She has not given me her reasons, other than that she is certain it is what the Dear Listeners brought her back for.” Hilbert’s jaw tightened for a moment, and he swallowed hard. “But I know that I cannot forgive that company for making me what I became. For taking Decima and...” he trailed off, his jaw clenching again. “It was never meant to be a weapon,” he ground out after a long moment of silence. “If I had known how they intended to use it, I would have destroyed it long ago.”</p><p class="p1">“And if they hadn’t decided to use it to hold the world hostage? Would you still want to...?” Renée trailed off, the expression on Hilbert’s face answering the question for her. “I see.”</p><p class="p1">“I know better.” He sighed and turned back to the papers in his lap. “But the path to such thoughts is still so well-worn in my mind. I cannot seem to extract it.”</p><p class="p1">“Do you want to extract it?” He did not answer for a silence so long that she thought he wasn’t going to. “Hilbert?”</p><p class="p1">“Decima cost me everything, once, though I did not realize it had until it was too late,” he said distantly. “I will not allow it to happen again.” He chuckled, properly this time, and seemed to become fixed in this present moment once more. “No, I will not be researching Decima again. Not beyond what is needed to destroy it.”</p><p class="p1">“I’m going to hold you to that.”</p><p class="p1">“Please do.” He raised an eyebrow.“Though... if I take Captain Lovelace as a template for what to expect, I am not certain that there are any meaningful consequences you can inflict on me. Not any more.”</p><p class="p1">He was probably right. “I’ll find some. Just for you.”</p><p class="p1">Hilbert almost smiled at that. “Thank you, Commander. I do not think I will truly be tempted, not...” but he trailed off, his jaw tense once more.</p><p class="p1">“Like I said. I’ll hold you to it. So will Isabel.”</p><p class="p1">He smiled wryly, as if imagining that Isabel would have an easier time of finding consequences to inflict on him.</p><p class="p1">Isabel probably would.</p><p class="p1">They sat in silence. Renée supposed she ought to get up and leave Hilbert to whatever he felt like doing, but given the expression on his face and the way he kept glancing at the door, she suspected all he felt like doing was brooding and waiting for Rosemary to come back from whatever conversation she was having with Jacobi. So maybe he would be grateful for a distraction.</p><p class="p1">And maybe she was thinking about what Doug had said. About giving Hilbert a fresh start.</p><p class="p1">So she would try.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“So....”</p><p class="p1">Alexander turned a glare on Renée, but all she did in response was raise her eyebrows and smile in what he took to be an encouraging fashion.</p><p class="p1">“You have a <em>wife</em>.”</p><p class="p1">Alexander snorted. Rosemary’s little deception was working out better than they had expected, except for the part where nothing about it was deceptive on his end of things. And he could not quite bring himself to lie to Renée, not entirely. “Not yet. We are not... not yet.”</p><p class="p1">Renée leaned back against the cushions and crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me about her.”</p><p class="p1">Ridiculous. This was ridiculous. Why was she asking such a thing? “Commander Minkowski, we are not friends.”</p><p class="p1">She looked deliberately around the room, an eyebrow raised skeptically. “Well, I don’t exactly see anyone else lining up to take the job.” She turned back to Alexander and he found himself shying away from her direct gaze, from her careful smile. “It’s an olive branch. Take it or don’t.”</p><p class="p1">He watched her cautiously out of the corner of his eye. “Why are you asking?”</p><p class="p1">Her smile dropped off her face like a stone. “You always struck me as being very… very alone. And I thought that maybe what happened with Isabel’s crew explained it, but it started before then, didn’t it?”</p><p class="p1">It was startling to realize that Renée could read him well enough to have seen that. “We were all very alone,” he responded, looking away from her, squaring away the stack of paper in his lap for lack of anything better to do. “Goddard is very good at finding people who are, and at making use of them.”</p><p class="p1">“It just feels like it went deeper with you, is all.” And her words dug beneath his breastbone, squeezing tight around his heart.</p><p class="p1">“Commander…” But he had no idea how to respond. Should he tell her everything? His entire life, laid bare between them? Perhaps it would be equitable; he had had access to her entire file before she became commander of the Hephaestus, and Goddard’s files were always extremely thorough.</p><p class="p1">“Give me something, Hilbert,” she said quietly. “Isabel’s thirty seconds away from murdering you at all times. I don’t have a good read on Jacobi yet, but I think he’ll shake out about the same. So give me something. Some reason to believe you’re a different man than the one who died out there, because you really need someone on your goddamn side in all of this.”</p><p class="p1">“I have Rosemary.” Or he liked to pretend that he did, though there was little certainty there.</p><p class="p1">“And she’s enough?”</p><p class="p1">No. “What do you really want to hear from me? That I am a changed man? That I regret what I did? I never have, Commander.” He swallowed hard, forced out the lie. “I would not have survived, if I had given myself space to regret.” But that did not stop those regrets from being there, ready to consume him if he was not careful.</p><p class="p1">“That was then. What about now?” And Renee’s voice was soft, and insistent, and almost kind, and it made him angry, that she could remember who he had been and still have kindness for him.</p><p class="p1">“Ask me when it is done. Ask me when Decima is gone. Until then, I cannot afford such a weakness.” He tucked the papers under one arm and used the other to shove himself abruptly to his feet. “I am going to go find Rosemary.”</p><p class="p1">“Sure,” Renée said mildly. “Walk away. Stay alone. I don’t give a damn.”</p><p class="p1">Alexander froze.</p><p class="p1">“But I think maybe you <em>do</em> give a damn, even if you don’t realize it. So if you decide you decide you want things to be <em>different</em> this time, you know what to do.”</p><p class="p1">He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, swallowing his anger, his reluctance to be known. And then…</p><p class="p1">“My sister died when I was nine,” he said, sitting down on the couch at Renée’s side again, settling the stack of papers in his lap once more. “She was my last family member still living after Volgograd.”</p><p class="p1">There was a swift, startled inhalation from Renée. Yes, she <em>would</em> be familiar with that disaster. From the work her mother had once done, if nothing else.</p><p class="p1">“I did not trust anyone not to leave me, after that.”</p><p class="p1">“Hilbert…”</p><p class="p1">“Do not pity me. It made me what I am. And I could not imagine being anything else.”</p><p class="p1">“Still…”</p><p class="p1">Yes. Still.</p><p class="p1">Renée sighed. “I didn’t mean to… you didn’t have to…” she sounded awkward, as if realizing how she had overstepped.</p><p class="p1">“You said it felt as if it went deeper. Well. Now that is no longer feeling. Now you know.” A swift sideways glance confirmed Renée’s discomfort, made him perversely pleased. She <em>had</em> asked.</p><p class="p1">She had asked about <em>Rosemary</em>. Alexander sighed as well. He was being vindictive, and Renée did not deserve that.</p><p class="p1">“She was my lab manager,” he offered, turning his head to look at Renée. She had a confused expression on her face, but it cleared as he continued. “She was the most ridiculous woman I had ever met in my life. It was the early 90s, and she wore these wigs…” He gestured, indicating how tall they had been, the fluffy shape of them, and Renée gave him a hesitant smile. “And I think she had a suit in every color of the rainbow, every one of them with shoulderpads out to here.” He indicated their span, and Renée’s hesitant smile grew wider. “And the way she would smile…”</p><p class="p1">Renée let out a soft laugh.</p><p class="p1">“What?”</p><p class="p1">She shook her head. “Your face,” she said, and then she let out another laugh. “You really do love that woman.”</p><p class="p1">He felt suddenly, uncomfortably seen, but he did not think Renée would believe him if he denied it. “Yes.”</p><p class="p1">Renée settled further against the back of the couch, smirking at him. “Just never thought I’d see you being a sap over something that wasn’t a virus or a mutant plant monster, is all.”</p><p class="p1">Alexander rolled his eyes. “Commander, please.”</p><p class="p1">“It’s cute.”</p><p class="p1">Renee’s only response when he cursed her out in Russian was even more laughter, and after a moment, Alexander joined her.</p>
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